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I just got home from a week and a half in KS. It was great seeing everyone again, but I was so happy to get home and see the dog and cats and sleep in my own bed and see Captain again. Not necessarily in that order.
Below the cut there are a crapload of pics guaranteed to kill the flist (which is why they're behind the cut) and me blathering about the HP release party we went to.
Ok, this was before we left. Captain was playing around with my time turner and Loki. Then Beck Lolcat-ed the pic for us.
Captain and I decided to drive to up to visit Alex at one in the morning (that's when we left) on the 18th, so we got to Alex's place around eight am. Luckily he was awake already. We unpacked the car, took a nap until 11:30 and then went to Sandy's for lunch. I seriously love eating at Sandy's. She makes the best taco salad ever. After a quick trip to Volde-Mart, we went back to Alex's to nap. That night I made gift bags for Friday night.
We met up with Midget and Linda (someone I used to work with at Varney's) on Friday. Midget had to do some shopping, then we went out to eat at Texas Star for Linda's lunchbreak. Beck showed up just as we were done at T-Star (Midget and I split some queso because we knew we'd be eating again in less than an hour and a half), and we drove to Perky's house to unload the cars and to say goodbye to Captain.
He spent the rest of the weekend at Alex's, then drove back home to work all week.
Once we'd picked up Perky and Bee, the five of uskidnapped borrowed Dobby for a window display for the book release party.
The Dobbster was loaded into the trunk. Midget isn't really molesting him, I swear. No matter what this picture that Beck made me take looks like.
That explains the infamous Dobby in the Trunk picture. Seriously, if you had Dobby in your trunk, wouldn't you take pictures? After that we went out to each lunch, then back to Perky's.
The gift bags had lots of HP candy and the pieces for an arts and crafts project. We spent the rest of the afternoon creating commemorative frames.
All the frames turned out very nicely. The blurry bits are where I photoshopped out signatures and full names, trust me, they look much better on the frames themselves. Midget thoughtfully added "Your Sister" after her signature, just in case I forgot.
All our hard work carting Dobby around town paid off, and this is him in the window.
Being creepy.
As Dobby does.
Here we are, all in costume, hanging around inside the bookstore. Bee is a Muggle in front, then Midget dressed as a wizard pretending to be a Muggle (she's got my spare wand tucked into her hair), then Beck decked out in Ravenclaw colors, Perky is in the back as McG and I'm apparently attempting to Crucio my sister. Or something. Hee.
This is the picture I got lectured by an Umbridge wanna-be for taking since you're not supposed to take pictures in stores or something. Because I am totally a spy for a rival candy store chain and Candyopolis's totally innovative way of displaying bins of sweets is groundbreaking... except not. I'm serious, she looked like Umbridge in a polo and black pants, called me sweetie and kept touching me. SHE CREEPED ME OUT.
Anywho, dueling Midget and Beck.
After we figured out the candy store hadn't really done much of anything to warrant them actually being open for the book release (one pile of Bernie Bott's does not constitute a HP display, sorry), we wandered down the mall to Kitchen Capers where there was supposed to be pumpkin juice and butter beer.
They were sold out of pumpkin juice and the Butter Beer was not what they'd been advertising (which was supposed to be sort of root beer with butter shots and served cold). I ordered a large Butter Beer for Midget and then wandered off because it was hot, and they ended up giving her a small (with no refund for the price difference) cup of hot slime that tasted a bit like glue. Let's just say the Butter Beer was not a winner and move on.
There were lots of drawings over the three hours we were waiting for the books to come out, and a few trivia contests/spelling bees/quizes. The only bit that really lagged was the Snape debate which was really just a chance for the audience to say whatever they wanted about Snape and to cause major feedback over the mic because no one would pay attention to Perky telling them they needed to stand in a certain area because of the mic set up.
Considering all the issues the bookstore had trying to get the evening organized (like the mall not letting them bring in additional seating, and the mall forcing the volunteer DJ to cancel at the last minute by insisting that if he wanted to play he'd have to pay $200 for insurance in case anyone wanted to dance, and half the power outlets around the bandstand not working) I think they did a FABULOUS job.
My group found a patch of floor and sat to watch the activities on the bandstand, and other than the liquid glue incident (and my sister's unfortunate encounter with a vomit flavored Bertie Bott that resulted with her ending up with chunks of jelly bean down the inside of her shirt for the entire night) we had a blast.
I managed to run into a bunch of friends from my D&D days, which was cool.
There were costume contests, of course. This guy was dressed as Mundungus Fletcher, and spent the night asking people if they wanted to buy a wand (which he'd made, and if I'd had a chance I probably would have bought one even though I already have two of my own).
Here is Midget and I in the ladies costume contest. Of course we didn't win, neither of us was expecting too, but Midget wouldn't go up unless I did so somehow we both ended up on the stage. Then Perky totally threw me by handing me the mic and telling me to say who I was dressed as.
Yeah, public speaking? Not my thing.
During the course of the evening Beck won a GC, Midget a stuffed bear, all of us a bookmark, I'd ended up winning 12th place in line, and Mr. Perky (who had been volunteered to take photos for the event and spent the entire night running around with the camera) won first in line. Between the two of us our entire party was done buying books and out of store and in the car by 12:10.
Most of us stayed up until the wee hours reading. I didn't finish the book for a few more days because I kept going out and doing things, but I'd been spoiled and had the carpet book on my computer so that was fine.
Saturday night Beck, Midget and I went to dinner with Bee and Sig, and then out to see OotP again.
Sunday we drove into Topeka to eat lunch with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grandpoohbah and her mom, stopped so Beck could try on a dress for her brother's wedding and to say hi to Beck's family (Hi, Beck's Family) and a quick trip at a scrapbook store I used to frequent.
Sadly, the store was going out of business. On the plus side, everything was 60% off and paper was 10 sheets for a dollar, so I bought $30 or $40 worth of stuff for under $10.
I spent the rest of the week at Beck's house. We went out for dinner every night, watched the Daily Show and Colbert Report, Who Wants to be a Superhero and Ice Road Truckers, and caught 28 Days Later at one point. Perky took a day off and came up to visit on Tuesday night and we played Trivial Pursuit (Beck handed us our arses, as she always does when we play TP) and went out for Japanese Steakhouse food and sushi.
I ate a LOT of sushi this last week. A LOT.
Oh, I picked up a Snape action figure from Borders. He's so cute, with his long billowy robes and the buttons on his frock coat and his wand which looks just like my wand.
Saturday we drove back to Manhappiness just in time to snag Baby C - Grandpoohbah, who isn't a baby anymore but will always be Baby C to me, even when she's twenty and trying to date and embarrassed as heck because her "auntie Miah" keeps calling her Baby and Pumpkin and asking if her date wants to see pics of her dressed as Cthulhu for her first Halloween - and take her to the Sunset Zoo for several hours. Then we hung out at Perky's, watched Evita, then met up for dinner at Happy Valley.
Yesterday, Beck drove me half way home and Captain was waiting to pick me up. I haven't been that happy to see him since he came home from Iraq.
All in all, I had a great time. Didn't get anything that I swore I would get done, done. Still have one more big scene in chapter five of Jericho to finish, have started a brand new one shot fic that will be DH compliant (including the epilogue) and still SS/HG (mwhahaha). Have put aside the Slytherin Scarf project in order to start knitting some things for Christmas. And haven't quite finished unpacking.
Below the cut there are a crapload of pics guaranteed to kill the flist (which is why they're behind the cut) and me blathering about the HP release party we went to.
Ok, this was before we left. Captain was playing around with my time turner and Loki. Then Beck Lolcat-ed the pic for us.
Captain and I decided to drive to up to visit Alex at one in the morning (that's when we left) on the 18th, so we got to Alex's place around eight am. Luckily he was awake already. We unpacked the car, took a nap until 11:30 and then went to Sandy's for lunch. I seriously love eating at Sandy's. She makes the best taco salad ever. After a quick trip to Volde-Mart, we went back to Alex's to nap. That night I made gift bags for Friday night.
We met up with Midget and Linda (someone I used to work with at Varney's) on Friday. Midget had to do some shopping, then we went out to eat at Texas Star for Linda's lunchbreak. Beck showed up just as we were done at T-Star (Midget and I split some queso because we knew we'd be eating again in less than an hour and a half), and we drove to Perky's house to unload the cars and to say goodbye to Captain.
He spent the rest of the weekend at Alex's, then drove back home to work all week.
Once we'd picked up Perky and Bee, the five of us
The Dobbster was loaded into the trunk. Midget isn't really molesting him, I swear. No matter what this picture that Beck made me take looks like.
That explains the infamous Dobby in the Trunk picture. Seriously, if you had Dobby in your trunk, wouldn't you take pictures? After that we went out to each lunch, then back to Perky's.
The gift bags had lots of HP candy and the pieces for an arts and crafts project. We spent the rest of the afternoon creating commemorative frames.
All the frames turned out very nicely. The blurry bits are where I photoshopped out signatures and full names, trust me, they look much better on the frames themselves. Midget thoughtfully added "Your Sister" after her signature, just in case I forgot.
All our hard work carting Dobby around town paid off, and this is him in the window.
Being creepy.
As Dobby does.
Here we are, all in costume, hanging around inside the bookstore. Bee is a Muggle in front, then Midget dressed as a wizard pretending to be a Muggle (she's got my spare wand tucked into her hair), then Beck decked out in Ravenclaw colors, Perky is in the back as McG and I'm apparently attempting to Crucio my sister. Or something. Hee.
This is the picture I got lectured by an Umbridge wanna-be for taking since you're not supposed to take pictures in stores or something. Because I am totally a spy for a rival candy store chain and Candyopolis's totally innovative way of displaying bins of sweets is groundbreaking... except not. I'm serious, she looked like Umbridge in a polo and black pants, called me sweetie and kept touching me. SHE CREEPED ME OUT.
Anywho, dueling Midget and Beck.
After we figured out the candy store hadn't really done much of anything to warrant them actually being open for the book release (one pile of Bernie Bott's does not constitute a HP display, sorry), we wandered down the mall to Kitchen Capers where there was supposed to be pumpkin juice and butter beer.
They were sold out of pumpkin juice and the Butter Beer was not what they'd been advertising (which was supposed to be sort of root beer with butter shots and served cold). I ordered a large Butter Beer for Midget and then wandered off because it was hot, and they ended up giving her a small (with no refund for the price difference) cup of hot slime that tasted a bit like glue. Let's just say the Butter Beer was not a winner and move on.
There were lots of drawings over the three hours we were waiting for the books to come out, and a few trivia contests/spelling bees/quizes. The only bit that really lagged was the Snape debate which was really just a chance for the audience to say whatever they wanted about Snape and to cause major feedback over the mic because no one would pay attention to Perky telling them they needed to stand in a certain area because of the mic set up.
Considering all the issues the bookstore had trying to get the evening organized (like the mall not letting them bring in additional seating, and the mall forcing the volunteer DJ to cancel at the last minute by insisting that if he wanted to play he'd have to pay $200 for insurance in case anyone wanted to dance, and half the power outlets around the bandstand not working) I think they did a FABULOUS job.
My group found a patch of floor and sat to watch the activities on the bandstand, and other than the liquid glue incident (and my sister's unfortunate encounter with a vomit flavored Bertie Bott that resulted with her ending up with chunks of jelly bean down the inside of her shirt for the entire night) we had a blast.
I managed to run into a bunch of friends from my D&D days, which was cool.
There were costume contests, of course. This guy was dressed as Mundungus Fletcher, and spent the night asking people if they wanted to buy a wand (which he'd made, and if I'd had a chance I probably would have bought one even though I already have two of my own).
Here is Midget and I in the ladies costume contest. Of course we didn't win, neither of us was expecting too, but Midget wouldn't go up unless I did so somehow we both ended up on the stage. Then Perky totally threw me by handing me the mic and telling me to say who I was dressed as.
Yeah, public speaking? Not my thing.
During the course of the evening Beck won a GC, Midget a stuffed bear, all of us a bookmark, I'd ended up winning 12th place in line, and Mr. Perky (who had been volunteered to take photos for the event and spent the entire night running around with the camera) won first in line. Between the two of us our entire party was done buying books and out of store and in the car by 12:10.
Most of us stayed up until the wee hours reading. I didn't finish the book for a few more days because I kept going out and doing things, but I'd been spoiled and had the carpet book on my computer so that was fine.
Saturday night Beck, Midget and I went to dinner with Bee and Sig, and then out to see OotP again.
Sunday we drove into Topeka to eat lunch with
grandpoohbah and her mom, stopped so Beck could try on a dress for her brother's wedding and to say hi to Beck's family (Hi, Beck's Family) and a quick trip at a scrapbook store I used to frequent.Sadly, the store was going out of business. On the plus side, everything was 60% off and paper was 10 sheets for a dollar, so I bought $30 or $40 worth of stuff for under $10.
I spent the rest of the week at Beck's house. We went out for dinner every night, watched the Daily Show and Colbert Report, Who Wants to be a Superhero and Ice Road Truckers, and caught 28 Days Later at one point. Perky took a day off and came up to visit on Tuesday night and we played Trivial Pursuit (Beck handed us our arses, as she always does when we play TP) and went out for Japanese Steakhouse food and sushi.
I ate a LOT of sushi this last week. A LOT.
Oh, I picked up a Snape action figure from Borders. He's so cute, with his long billowy robes and the buttons on his frock coat and his wand which looks just like my wand.
Saturday we drove back to Manhappiness just in time to snag Baby C - Grandpoohbah, who isn't a baby anymore but will always be Baby C to me, even when she's twenty and trying to date and embarrassed as heck because her "auntie Miah" keeps calling her Baby and Pumpkin and asking if her date wants to see pics of her dressed as Cthulhu for her first Halloween - and take her to the Sunset Zoo for several hours. Then we hung out at Perky's, watched Evita, then met up for dinner at Happy Valley.
Yesterday, Beck drove me half way home and Captain was waiting to pick me up. I haven't been that happy to see him since he came home from Iraq.
All in all, I had a great time. Didn't get anything that I swore I would get done, done. Still have one more big scene in chapter five of Jericho to finish, have started a brand new one shot fic that will be DH compliant (including the epilogue) and still SS/HG (mwhahaha). Have put aside the Slytherin Scarf project in order to start knitting some things for Christmas. And haven't quite finished unpacking.